Resources
Things that helped.
Not a content farm. A short, honest list of what actually helped — including the books that inspired this app and didn’t, on their own, fix anything.
None of this is advice. We’re a task app, not a clinician. Nothing here diagnoses, treats or manages any condition, and if you need real support, please talk to a real professional in your country. This is one neurodivergent person’s bookshelf and browser history, offered in that spirit.
The bookshelf
Books that shaped this app.
Read properly, believed sincerely, tried repeatedly. Every one of them is good, and the honest headline is that none of them worked on their own — which is the entire reason Sarabellum exists. They shaped how we think; they just couldn’t supply the executive function to run themselves.
How to Win at College
Cal Newport. A big early influence — the idea that the systems around the work matter as much as the work. Newport’s Deep Work is the ancestor of the focus flow in this app.
The Now Habit
Neil Fiore. On procrastination as something other than a character defect — and on guilt as an accelerant rather than a cure. Its fingerprints are all over the shame-free thesis.
Atomic Habits
James Clear. Brilliant on small, repeatable change. Also the source of the streak mechanic we deliberately threw out — which is the sort of disagreement you can only have with a book you took seriously.
Driven to Distraction
Edward Hallowell & John Ratey. The book that put ADHD into plain language for a generation — a difference in wiring, not a deficit of character. A lot of this app’s tone traces straight back to that reframe.
Learning Outside the Lines
Jonathan Mooney & David Cole. Two students with ADHD and dyslexia on doing school on your own terms instead of the standard-issue ones — the permission slip a lot of us needed.
Mastery
Robert Greene. On the long apprenticeship — that mastery is hours and obsession, not a gift. A useful counterweight for a brain that’s brilliant in bursts and brutal on consistency.
From Mistakes to Meaning
Michael Lyndon & Joshua L. Steiner. On turning the wreckage of getting it wrong into something you can actually use. On Alex’s shelf — his recommendation.
No affiliate links anywhere on this page, or this site. Nobody is paying us to mention anything, and if that ever changes it’ll say so in enormous letters.
The rest
Still being written.
These fill up with things Alex genuinely rates, or they stay empty. A recommendation you can’t trust is worse than no recommendation.
Ours
Sarabellum’s own pages.
How it works
The capture → curate → focus loop, at length.
Who it’s for
The neurodivergent pitch, said out loud.
Help
How to actually do things in the app.
Blog
Working notes — what shipped, what broke, what it cost.
Know something that belongs here? Send it over — especially if it helped you personally.
None of this fixed it on its own.
That’s why the app exists. It’s free — have a look.